Rough Guide and Mapping Activities

Brief description

The Rough Guide to... and Mapping Activities require participants to take pictures or a short film of their community to express their context and environment from their perspective. These activities help to understand participants environments, where they live, where they travel to, what they feel about the places they go and why. There are many mapping activities available, we will focus on the rough Guide to.. which is a participatory video exercise, but could also be carried out with still cameras and/or voice recorders.

When to use

This activity can be used towards the beginning of the workshop. It's useful to begin storytelling with something easy and, usually, uncontroversial. It is helpful in understanding how different places, have different meanings to each of us: Some areas may mean nothing to some people, to others they may be familiar and to others them may represent something fearful. In finding this out and having discussion round it, participants begin to explore other people's perspectives on their stories.

The film produced could also be used to introduce stakeholders to the stories of the beneficiaries, giving them context and environment.

How to use

If using participatory video, giving people some tasks to structure their filming will help them to tell their story. An example of a task might be:

'Tell us about your area, the ordinary things, places, events from your own experience and what it feels like to be in the different areas, why you go there and who you go with'

Initially the participants draw a map of their area, including the above detail. After describing to each other and going into a bit more detail, they can then choose one persons map to film (depending on number of group and access to cameras etc).

Ask them to film 2 or 3 of the key areas in the map. When filming each area ask them to include an interview with or presentation to camera by the map owner. Ask them to film a sequence of shots in the following order:

1. Longshot – This is a shot taken from a distance which will establish a scene. It is often a landscape that includes the building and/or the person in the scene.

2. Midshot – This is a shot of the subject. If the subject is a person it would include the torso so they are recognisable as the subject. This establishes the subject.

3. Closeup – This is taken as close to the subject as possible. If the subject is a person this shot shows the detail in their face, possibly of them speaking. It provides the detail of the scene.

4. Interview of presentation/piece to camera - this is where the full description of the map area takes place.

5. Closing shot - this could be either a longshot, midshot or close up and concludes the scene.

The groups then come back and playback and discuss the filming and the films. It's here that you get to hear the stories, get to know the area and communities of the participants and to ask questions. It's also a chance to develop the skills of the participants where feedback can be given to the film makers and interviewers on their techniques.

Tips and Lessons Learned

Draw out examples of the different kinds of shot.

Talk about interviewing and how they want to do it:

Do they want to carry out interview with the interviewer on or off camera?

If the interviewer is off camera, be sure to ask the interviewee to include the questions in their answers.

Examples and stories

Working with 2 groups of young people in Peterborough and using this exercise we saw how the view of the same town was so different for a group of young people born and brought up in Peterborough compared to a group of recently arrived unaccompanied young asylum seekers. We used the 2 films to introduce the two groups to each other before they met. Watching the film made by the other group, gave the participants a sense of who they were and what they did. It also allowed them to ask questions they might not have thought about or felt able to ask had they just met them without the films. When they met and worked together they felt a connection already and were ready to get to know them.

This project was looking at integration and the films gave us a real insight into what the first group noticed or more importantly didn't notice about the town they lived in. Both groups were given the same task and the group brought up in Peterborough made a film that was comical and light where the new arrivals made a documentary looking at racism and people's attitude to new arrivals.

Who can tell me more?

Resources

Focus project DVD and report - available from Living Lens

Tags

Photos/image credits